Wireless communication systems can include wireless devices and access points (APs). The wireless devices can be configured as mobile stations (STAs) which can communicate between one another or through the APs. Standards such as IEEE 802.11ac, 802.11ad, 802.11v, etc are commonly used for such communications. These standards can include error specifications to ensure quality of communication.
An STA can include at least one local clock, based on which the STA bases its communication and data processing. However, it is usually not possible to precisely synchronize the local clocks among the several STAs, and therefore, each local clock can have its own error or clock drift. In positioning or location based applications using an 802.11 standard, determination of round trip time (RTT) for pre-specified messages or dialogs between two STAs for example can be used to provide an indication of distance between the two STAs. In a conventional method of RTT determination, when a transmitting STA, for example, is communicating with a receiving STA, the error in the transmitting STA's local clock gets compounded with the error in the receiving STA's local clock. Thus, the RTT determination and corresponding computation of distance between the two STAs is imprecise and highly error prone. The resultant error may be unacceptably high according to the wireless communication standard.